Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
I guess there is something mixed up in the rns. We should be already holding more than 10%:
The EQT share of NFCP should be already 19.99%, at least this is stated in the "Investment in associate" section of the 2020 results. EQT paid 2,229,006 Euros (ca. GBP 2.1m that time) for it. For this part it was agreed that "For the first five years of operation the share of profits from the associate is limited to 0.1999% rising to 19.99% thereafter."
And during 2020 EQT "advanced loans of €1,150,609 to North Fork Community Power LLC" and "the shareholders of North Fork Community Power LLC, including the Company, have agreed that these loans are to be converted into 15% of the equity of North Fork Community Power LLC subject to the completion of formal legal documentation."
However, the main goal of this rns is that the North Fork thing is sorted and going on. In my eyes it is one of the relics of a bygone era. Unfortunately, too important to drop it.
It ties up more money than expected, longer than expected. But it makes money for us, and if we're lucky, someone will buy a few shares from us when things go well. Fortunately, conservative investors are also satisfied with a low double-digit return :-)
And it was strategically absolutely important to take this step: North Fork is our gateway to the US market, our reference that problems can be solved and that we will not give up in difficult situations. Something like that creates trust and credibility. And it's our MDC for mainland America. We wanted to have a larger share of the MDCs in our own hands anyway.
Good evening / good morning. This is a transcription of another one from the interims Q&A that was only available as audio. Really worth reading.
Q20: Can you touch on the expected pipeline conversion rate and average sales cycle for deals?
This is something that we're working very hard on. I think it's fair to say one of the problems that we started grappling with 12/18 months ago was, that we are seeing very long cycles, by which I mean, there was no bounding around that.
Now in this industry, which is the construction industry in any kind of infrastructure project, I think what you'll find is people are hard pressed to answer that question. But one of the things that we're trying to bring to this is a discipline that we've seen in other industries. You know I come from large scale it implementations, global it implementation for example, and we do want to start to bound them.
So as we start to put in financial close dates that we negotiate and we discussed this with our own people and with partners, we are starting to pin that down. You know, we would like to see, even for the more complex to negotiate deals, it's falling well within a year. But right now I would say the larger, more complex one is probably twelve to eighteen months for some of the smaller ones.
We were talking about our partners in Greece recently, even on the smaller ones, the time it takes simply to get an environmental mits, which is critical, could be as long as a year.
So with that kind of lead time, what we have to try and find is how could we put in more influence, but also much better management to close those things down? So I'm afraid there's no mark, mathematical hard and fast, benchmark, but I think bringing it in (?) within twelve months is definitely our goal.
And just to ask to that, obviously, we have a very diverse pipeline of products that being already incubated and material.
So the other thing is to distribute on that period in our project. So you reach a point where we you have the capability to close a project every two months or less, because you have and you can close multiple projects at the same time. So you have discipline.
The question was not ignored, but asked several times and answered three times. It even found its way into the new FAQ after the presentation: The company is simply not allowed to make predictions for the following year. By the way: that is one reason why most companies pay researches like Arden to make predictions instead.
EQTEC PLC Interim Results Q&A
28th Sep 2021 at 12:45pm BST
Q1: What are your turnover and profit forecasts going forward each year for the next 5 years?
As a public company we are not permitted to make forward-looking statements or provide financial information about future revenue or profit beyond the current year. As a discipline, we carry out long-term forecasting as part of our annual strategy and business planning activities, and as discussed on our 28 September investor call, we are forecasting growth.
Q5: What are you forecast revenues over the next 5 years?
As a public company we are not permitted to make forward-looking statements or provide financial information about future revenue or profit beyond the current year. As a discipline, we carry out long-term forecasting as part of our annual strategy and business planning activities, and as discussed on our 28 September investor call, we are forecasting growth.
Q9: Do you have a projected profit for 2022
As a public company we are not permitted to make forward-looking statements or provide financial information about future revenue or profit beyond the current year. As a discipline, we carry out long-term forecasting as part of our annual strategy and business planning activities, and as discussed on our 28 September investor call, we are forecasting growth.
https://eqtec.com/eqtec-faqs/
What are EQTEC's turnover and profit forecasts for the next few years?
As a public company we are not permitted to make forward-looking statements or provide financial information about future revenue or profit beyond the current year. As a discipline, we carry out long-term forecasting as part of our annual strategy and business planning activities, and as outlined in our Interim Report for 2021, we are forecasting growth.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/eqtecplc_wastetoenergy-development-cleantech-activity-6854381804959354880-lMEG
"The recommissioning of our Italia MDC project is continuing on track: the site has been fully cleaned and relevant components have just finished being disassembled and cleared. Gasification & associated technology items have been ordered and deliveries are scheduled to start arriving from later next month, plus we're continuing to coordinate with our construction and commissioning partners"
### Answer part 2 ###
So if we miss one or two for Q1 next year, it will just continue to build the momentum on execution.
So we are 'all chips in' for the big win, and we feel that we can achieve that.
### Answer end ###
### Answer part 1 ###
Okay, Well, I think what I would say to that is:
We very much are on track with so many initiatives in the background to deliver what we said we set out to deliver in the beginning of the year.
We have been literally looking at all the risks, there may be mitigating the risk as we go along producing (you know) the uncertainty around the revenue fees, so we are fairly confident, but obviously all of these things do rest on certain things happening by the year end.
And we are 'all hands on deck' to make sure that we actually deliver those things.
Just to add to that this is important for that to happen at the beginning of the year.
We believe that we'll achieve that because most of the revenues are split between development services, which have already been delivered, and as soon as we change the ownership of the SPV, we can recognize and the other ones are to technology sells or projects that we are doing on the joint ventures.
So if you think about that, how is that, seems like a large number in terms of revenue. It's coming from six projects, and it's coming from six projects which we have an executive director on each two projects, just making sure the execution.
The risk that you have in this is execution risk. It's delays.
We don't have a commercial sales risk.
We don't have even a funding risk.
It's all about execution on time.
We see a lot of that coming between October and November this year and
we are working and we have everyone from the executives down in the company motivated, committed and incentivized to be able to deliver what we said we would deliver.
Answer part 2:
Yeah, if I may.
I mean, this is not a surprise. This is the same number we had at the outset of the year. We have consistently announced in our trading updates that we knew this year is back loaded. If you go back to the lifecycle that we shared with you on this call,
it's very clear why that is: It's very much about getting that work done upfront,
assembling the right players, driving this thing through to financial close.
And so therefore, quite naturally, that work as David has alluded to had to happen in the first half of the year.
We're very pleased with how it's happened and how it's been set up,
we're very pleased with the quality of the teams we have working on it.
Now we need to see that come back through, of course, in the back end of this year.
We have confidence *followed by not undestandable words*
The last thing I wanted to mention:
At the stage we are at as a company it's all about the momentum. We will fight 'tooth and nail' to deliver seven times revenue, but we will disappoint investors by delivering five, six times revenue, which is a good problem to have.
So the point is, all those projects that we have by the last quarter of the year
are our projects
and they are funded
and they're going ahead.
During all the discussions, I wonder whether some of the protagonists here did not see or did see but did not understand the interim presentation and especially the Q&A afterwards. The answers were actually pretty straightforward. Much of what is speculated here by the usual suspects was answered by our BoD the week before last.
And then still questions arise again as to when the revenues should be made and how and one of the senior experts here once again doesn't even know what he's writing about, swaps revenue for profit and adorns things that he has pulled out of context with obscure ones Allegations.
The questions from the Q&A after the presentation from 28th Spt. 2021 are publicly available at the end of the presentation video on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OsMzw64yMo
There is also an official transcription of most questions and some answers available via InvestorMeetCompany.
Unfortunately there is no official transcription of the question most people ask these days. I felt free to do a transcription and post it here. Thanks to RollonRetirement for his revision. the answer was pretty long, so I have to split it in two or three parts. Here we go:
Q2: Are the Company's predicted 2021 earnings on track? (ie circa 15m Euros in revenue).
We are sure to be subsidized too. But that's more part of the projects, and they are in their own SPVs. Our projects are also all much smaller, often only with local or regional partners. Let's be honest: Even our flagship at Billingham doesn't generate more energy than a handful of modern wind turbines. The special thing about it is that it recycles RDF with almost no residue. And that we develope many many many of such plants.
Didn't we even get North Fork grants? There was never anything about this in an RNS, but if I remember correctly, there was a letter with the request to extend some deadlines for grants because of the fire and Covid. I can't find the letter at the moment, but it must have been about half a year since it made the rounds here or in the chat next door.
The sudden arrival or return of some people here is like the arrival of the first birds returning from the south, They don't come before summer. And none of them is selfless enough to come here just to save our world.
I take them a s a good sign. They can't bet against a pennystock like ours. They don't earn money from falling sharprices. All They just want it down a little to get good entry prices.
See them as some kind of indicator for more things to come, very soon. They wouldn't waste their time to get cheaper into some long term something. Hope Genius, ISA, Tenpins and one or two others will coplete the round, soon. And then: Hey ho, let's go :-)
Q&A from last Tuesday:
Q16: What is the status of North Fork pls? Have eqtec taken a majority stake in the project and how much funding have eqtec provided?
On 12 July, the Company announced it had made a non-binding proposal to provide requisite funding, as a convertible loan facility, to take to completion the North Fork, California, USA project. The proposed facility, if accepted, fully drawn down and converted, would result in the Company's increasing its current minority stake to take a controlling interest in the project SPV, North Fork Community Power (NFCP). The Company expects legal execution to be concluded shortly.
Different systems seem to bring different shareprices. And in my position (German, with my Bank DKB as a broker), I don't even get quotes from them for london, just the possibility to place a limit order and wait what happens.
However: If -0.43 is the correct loss as displayed at Hargreaves (and on this site and London stock exchange), this should be the price to look at. But this means that the whole thing is not only a question of a single website, but also a question of generally changing the share price with the bell:
A change of -0.43% is exactly the difference between Thursday's clsoing price of 1.175 and the final UT on Friday evening at 1.17p: 1.175*(1-0.0043)=1,17p.
So far everything is fine. What nags me: We didn't have a single trade higher than 1.15 for hours before the UT, so once again we closed higher than we should. London stock exchange has this as closing price though they state bid was 1.1 and ask 1.15, so we are beyond limits, again.
And without news, on monday we will open there and here and at Hargreaves with the same bid 1.10 and ask 1.15 and will be instantly red at 1-1.125/1.17)= -3,846%, though neither bid nor ask have changed.
I know that the entire classification as Buy or Sell on the London South East Site does not correspond to reality, but is guessed according to an algorithm. But most people here don't know exactly that and assume that a wave of “reds” is a wave of sales. And exactly such a thing was simulated here yesterday, as described in "Step 4".
Re the uncrossing trade: I had already said that it was an uncrossing trade from the closing auction. That is of course not unusual. What makes it seem strange:
Our order book is currently almost empty. And then a few minutes before the market closes, a buy order 5% above the current price for a small amount of shares appears, is sent to the closing auction and is thus served. And suddenly we close a day that was completely in the red, from the point of view of the websites of Google and LSE almost four percent up at 1.31p instead of 1.25p
This week I in my opinion, someone moved the displayed shareprice down without changing bid & ask and afterwards sent the sp really down. The following image may help to understand what I mean:
https://my.hidrive.com/lnk/fihJlFD3
Step 1:
On Wednesday we were slightly red the whole afternoon:
- The three MMs with the highest Bid of 1.2p were CFEP, PEEL and WINS
- The three MMs with the lowest Ask were ARDA, JBER and SCAP
- Bid was 1.2p, Ask was 1.3p.
- Our SP was 1.25p
A few minutes before the bell, someone sent a buy order at pocket money level into auction, bidding more than the MMs ask. And someone (else?) sent a corresponding sell order into auction. The result was 40k shares uncrossing trade at 1.31p on the bell.
Though we have been slightly red all afternoon and most trades were at 1.25p +/-0.01, the UT price of 1.31 was used as closing price by the LSE site and by Google. And though nothing else had changed, we were suddenly blue (+3.97%).
Step 2:
Why such trade? The answer is simple: To let the following day start red. And so it did on thursday:
- The three MMs with the highest Bid of 1.2p were CFEP, PEEL and WINS
- The three MMs with the lowest Ask were ARDA, JBER and SCAP
- Bid was 1.2p, Ask was 1.3p.
- Yest. close was 1.31
- Our SP was 1.25p
Still nothing had changed, but we were optically red at the LSE site (- 3.58%) and at Google.
Step 3:
Uncrossing trade the other way round: This time an uncrossing trade of 145,064 shares an hour after opening sends the LSE SP further down to 1.23p
- The three MMs with the highest Bid of 1.2p were CFEP, PEEL and WINS
- The three MMs with the lowest Ask were ARDA, JBER and SCAP
- Bid was 1.2p, Ask was 1.3p.
- Yest. close was 1.31
- Our SP was 1.23p
Still nothing had changed, but we were then already down 6.11% at the LSE site.
Step 4:
Subsequently, buy orders were served almost at the bid price, so that buys appeared here as sells. Some people reported here and/or next door that their buys were marked as sells by the LSE Algo.
Now, with 6.11% down shown for no reason and only lots of "sells" (at least marked as such in the trades list), some people really started to sell. And then it really went down 0.05p
I surely don’t say someone manipulated the share price down. But I think, this is an interesting chain of coincidences.
Altair crossed the 20% line in March when they sorted out the last warrants from an older placing (19.36% -> 20.64%).
They used the placing in 2021 to fall back below 20%: Thiugh they bought 147m shares, due to dilution they went down from 20.64% to 19.4%.
Since then they went down from 19.4 to 19.1% without a mentioned reason. Probably one reason is the small dilution from GMs exercise of warrants in July.
Slides only (pdf):
https://my.hidrive.com/lnk/yRBplOAv
Just in case someone missed it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OsMzw64yMo
Why are you whining about revenue figures on a reference date three months ago in the summer slump? This is yesterday's news and meaningless.
Everyone here knows that only the financial close in Italy and (1,750,000 euros) and the sale of the Billingham shares (3,000,000 pounds) together are already double of the total revenue in 2020 (2,234,727 pounds).
And the year is still young .